


Phoenix

by supergirrl



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 17:00:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7516088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supergirrl/pseuds/supergirrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On their first night with the Vuvalini, Furiosa tells Capable that she must ask Nux a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Phoenix

**Author's Note:**

> In the film, we see Furiosa ask Max if he wants to come with them across the salt flats or go off on his own, so I assumed that someone probably had a similar conversation with Nux. And who else would that be besides Capable?

One of the books in the Vault had been about astronomy; Toast had poured over it for days, reading the names of suns and moons and galaxies aloud to them, teaching herself how to chart a path using the stars. But even hearing Toast talk about the ten thousand stars visible from their earth, some so far away that it took thousands of years for their light to reach earth, hadn’t prepared Capable for the vastness of the night sky, so much larger than she could have imagined. There was a depth to it, something impossible to comprehend through the dome in the Vault or the fume-choked air of Gas Town. It made her feel small, insignificant, as if it could open up and swallow them all.

Yet she didn’t feel lonely. Her sisters were near, and Nux was warm and reassuringly solid beside her, curled together in the lookout post.

He listened attentively as she pointed out different constellations, naming the ones she could remember. Toast knew far more of them than she did, but he seemed content like this, hands entwined and her leg resting atop his.

From where she leaned her head against his chest, she could hear his heart, steady but not as strong as it should be.

_Please let it continue beating,_ she found herself pleading with the gods, with Angharad’s ghost, with anyone out there listening. _Please don’t take him from me yet._

“Capable.” Furiosa’s voice startled them both with its closeness; she was standing beside the Rig, wrapped in one of the sturdy blanked given to them by the Vuvalini.

“Walk with me.” Furiosa rarely spoke to her or her sisters in that way; in commands, issued in a curt, clipped tone that Dag called her Imperator voice. Even during their escape, her instructions to them had been urgent but never orders.

Reluctantly, Capable extricated herself from the comfortable circle of the blanket and Nux’s arms, then slid down off the Rig. Nux leaned forward slightly, as if to follow her, but she shook her head. For whatever reason, Furiosa wanted to have this conversation with her alone.

Silently, she fell into step beside Furiosa, who led her to the edge of the dune they were camped atop. Furiosa didn’t say a word or even look at Capable, and she wondered if all the pain-Angharad’s death, the loss of the Green Place-had caused Furiosa to retreat behind the walls she built around her heart, the walls that only Angharad seemed able to reach her through.

“Tomorrow morning, we’re leaving the Rig here and heading east.”

Capable followed Furiosa’s gaze out across the barren, seemingly endless plains of salt. Something about them seemed sinister to her, threatening, somehow.

“What’s on the other side?”

Furiosa shrugged. “Don’t know. But it’s better than what’s behind us.”

That was undeniably true, but Capable was certain that Furiosa hadn’t brought her here to discuss what-and who-they were fleeing. “You said ‘we.’ Me and my sisters, you, and the Vuvalini are going across the salt flats. What about Nux and the fool?”

Furiosa’s eyes flicked towards the fool, off by himself, seemingly engrossed in something clutched in his left hand. “The fool isn’t coming. I need you to talk to Nux, tell him he can go with us or take a bike, make his own way.”

Capable was more than a little surprised that the fool was leaving them; despite his feral ways, she had seen the strange, soft way he sometimes watched Furiosa, when her attention was turned elsewhere. She also knew that, if he had any aspirations towards Furiosa, they would go unnoticed by her. The part of someone that made them respond to warm touches and loving words had only existed for Furiosa, as far as Capable could tell, for Angharad. Although she tolerated the man-even though he had helped them, it was difficult to forget that he shot Angharad and pointed a gun to Toast’s head-Capable wouldn’t grieve overmuch in his absence.

“Aren’t you worried he’ll go back to Joe? Tell him where we are?” In her heart of hearts, Capable knew that Nux would never do that, but it wasn’t like Furiosa to be trusting of anyone, let alone a War Boy who had defected in the past forty-eight hours.

Furiosa knew that she meant Nux, and shook her head. “He won’t. He knows what happens to traitors. And besides, I think he’s found a reason to stay, for as long as he can.”

The look she gave Capable was meaningful, and Capable felt her cheeks burn. Furiosa hadn’t remarked on her and Nux’s closeness previously, but that didn’t mean she was unaware of the attachment forming between them.

Somehow, the older woman’s acknowledgement of the soft, awkward touches and kisses that Capable and Nux had shared was different from Dag’s teasing words, Toast’s playful wink and affectionate hip bump, or how Cheedo had brushed her lips across Capable’s cheek and whispered that Capable deserved a little happiness. Perhaps it was because her sisters had gone through the same thing before, with Angharad and Furiosa, and wanted her to snatch any joy that came her way. But in Furiosa’s words, there was a hint of warning, to be careful not to give away her heart too quickly to this dying boy.

She knew Furiosa meant well, was just trying to protect her, but that didn’t mean she liked being reminded of the specter of death that stalked her time with Nux.

“I’ll ask him,” she said, then turned to walk back to the Rig. Yet she had only taken a few steps when a question occurred to her.

“Why’d you ask the fool yourself, but not Nux?”

Furiosa sighed. “He still sees me as an Imperator. When I talk to him, he’s a War Boy again, and anything I say, he obeys as an order. But with you, he listens, he thinks. If you ask him, he can decide for himself, if he wants to risk his life and come with us. After all the War Boys I killed to get here, I owe one of them the chance to choose whether to live or die.”

 

When she returned to the Rig, Nux eagerly helped pull her back up into the cabin, and she smiled at his obvious delight in her return. His hands were twisting together nervously, and she could tell that he was fighting the urge to raise them up in the V8 salute. Even after she explained to him that Joe wasn’t a god, convincing him not to worship her in the warlord’s place had been a struggle.

As they arranged themselves back in the comfortable position from before, she murmured, “Can I ask you something, Nux?”

He nodded, watching her face with rapt attention. That was another thing she was trying to teach him-that he didn’t always have to say yes to her, only when he wanted to. But when she told him that, he earnestly assured her that he always wanted to say yes to her.

“Tomorrow, the Vuvalini and Furiosa and my sisters will be taking the bikes that way-” she gestured towards the flats,“-for as long as we can. You can come with us, or you can take a bike and go off with the fool or on your own.”

Nux responded immediately. “‘Course I’ll come with you. As long as you’ll have me, and as long as Larry and Barry let me, I ride with you.”

She hadn’t really thought he would leave her, but his words sent a trickle of happiness through her. “Are you sure? It’ll be dangerous, we don’t know what’s out there.”

He seemed unconcerned. “Don’t have many days left, either way. Want to spend them with you.”

Capable wanted to tell him how much that meant to her, but found that she didn’t have the words. So instead she pulled him in gently for a kiss, shivering at the touch of his scarred lips against hers.

It was a long time before they broke apart and she settled herself against his chest, resuming his lesson in the constellations.

“And that’s the phoenix,” she said, lifting their clasped hands and indicating the direction she was looking. “You can only see it during a certain part of the year, and we’re almost out of that time now. So it’s lucky we saw it tonight.”

Nux made an appreciative sound. “What’s a phoenix?” He was learning that constellations were named after people or objects, and although he was familiar with a few-like the compass constellation-he knew very little about things not related to cars or weapons.

“It’s a kind of bird…not like a crow, a magical bird. They were huge, and lived for millions of days, much longer than even a whole life person. But when they were very old, instead of dying, they burst into flames, then were reborn from their ashes. So really, they never stayed dead. They died, because death is part of life, but they always returned.”

His eyes widened; he was clearly impressed. “That’s real chrome. I’ll try to do that, when it’s my time to go.”

Capable quirked an eyebrow at him. “What, catch fire?” She hoped her jesting tone masked the anxiety his words sparked within her.

“No, come back. Not let Valhalla keep me.” he said with utter certainty. “I’m living, I’m gonna die, and then I’ll live again. No matter what, I’m gonna come back to you. Out of the fire, I’ll come back.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed this! My guinea pig passed away last week so even though it's just a little oneshot, it's been nice having a project to distract myself with. Thank you to everyone who reads my fics, especially those who leave kudos or comments, it means the world to me! <3


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